Edgwarebury
Edgwarebury, Barnet
Also spelt as two separate words, Edgwarebury is farming country straddling the M1 motorway and the Hertfordshire border north of Edgware
To the east lies the oak woodland of Scratchwood, which dates back to the last Ice Age, while vestiges of Celtic fields have been discerned to the north.
‘Bury’ was Old English for a manor or manor house and Edgwarebury seems to have been the focus of the manor of Edgware through the Middle Ages and beyond. The manor was acquired by All Souls College, Oxford, in 1443, when Earlsbury Farm was the ‘chief demesne farm’ here.
A clause in Earlsbury Farm’s lease in 1602 stipulated that the lords of the manor or their representatives should be given accommodation at the farmhouse when visiting the manor on official business. This farmhouse was replaced in the early 17th century by the timber-framed Bury Farm, which was extended in the 18th century. The farmhouse was robbed in 1735 by the Essex Gang (also known as the Gregory Gang), whose members included Dick Turpin. The elderly householder was tortured in this notoriously wicked home invasion, and a female servant was raped.
Edgwarebury Lane used to connect with Fortune Lane in Elstree until the fields were enclosed in 1854 and Edgwarebury Lane was diverted northward.
Builders AW Curton laid out the upmarket Edgwarebury Lane estate in 1935, offering supersized properties such as a six-bedroom house for £1,785.
Edgwarebury Park lies on the edge of built-up Edgware. Evidence of the older landscape of fields and woodland remains here, in addition to more recent planting of trees and garden areas. To the south of the park, the land slopes towards the Edgwarebury Brook.
Edgwarebury cemetery opened in 1972 and approval for its enlargement was granted in 2010. The funeral of the singer/songwriter Amy Winehouse took place at the cemetery in July 2011 and her body was afterwards cremated at Golders Green crematorium.
A proposal to create an 18-hole golf course on green belt land west of Edgwarebury Farm was unanimously rejected by Barnet council’s planning committee in November 2015.
Beyond the M1 and the London border, the mock-Tudor Edgwarebury Hotel has satisfied Elstree studios’ location requirements on many occasions – usually doubling as the home of some rich eccentric – including in three episodes of The Avengers television series. The Laura Ashley design house acquired the hotel in 2011 and naffly renamed it ‘The Manor, Elstree’. In January 2019 Laura Ashley Holdings sold the property to Countrywide Hotels for £6 million. It’s still called The Manor.
Postcode area: Edgware HA8